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I bought Fallout New Vegas off of Steam a few weeks ago - it was available for $49.99 (US). I checked again today, the price has been jacked up to $89.95. I guess Australian retailers complained they were being dramatically undercut?

Oh well, good thing I got the game cheap when I had the chance. It probably won't be $49.99 again for a fucking year.

Gotta love that kind of bullshit. I would really like to see the Australian Steam vs Brick and Mortar sales data for PC games...

Vympel wrote:I bought Fallout New Vegas off of Steam a few weeks ago - it was available for $49.99 (US). I checked again today, the price has been jacked up to $89.95. I guess Australian retailers complained they were being dramatically undercut?

Oh well, good thing I got the game cheap when I had the chance. It probably won't be $49.99 again for a fucking year.

It's $40 AUD at www.ozgameshop.com if anybody is still interested in buying in Aus.

Holy shit. Surprised that store isn't permanently out of stock.

I feel a bit silly that I didn't buy all the current release titles I want while I was in the US. Kept putting it off, thinking 'there are best buys and walmarts everywhere, I don't need to get it today.' Stupid.

So, why, exactly, does Steam bow to Australian retail pressure? This is the thing I just don't understand-the Australian government can't *make* them jack the price up, and they can take progressively larger chunks of the Aussie PC gaming market by charging you guys what the rest of the world pays.

The other thing I don't get is the frigging DVDs get made in Southeast Asia! They're closer to you than us in the first place, are the waters between Australia and Papua New Guinea particularly treacherous?

I guess I'm just channeling the plight of Australian computer gamers here.

Slacker wrote: The other thing I don't get is the frigging DVDs get made in Southeast Asia! They're closer to you than us in the first place, are the waters between Australia and Papua New Guinea particularly treacherous?

Some kind of import taxes, maybe?

So, why, exactly, does Steam bow to Australian retail pressure? This is the thing I just don't understand-the Australian government can't *make* them jack the price up, and they can take progressively larger chunks of the Aussie PC gaming market by charging you guys what the rest of the world pays.

Because Steam gets games with the aggrement of the publishers, who can be pressured by retail. In fact, although I admit that I am not sure of this, the entire idea behind digital distribution has been undermined by retail pressure forcing digital distributors to sell at retail prices. Of course, no doubt that something more complex is going on and I would like to know the details about Steam and the like.

But I wouldn't be surprised if publishers still cling to retailers, even when they could avoid them for their own benefit.

The big misconception most people have is that publishers are some giant monolithic company. Most of them will have different companies covering different areas - so there's a different company running the Australian operation (EA Australia, Take 2 Australia etc). So they set the prices for this region independent of any other branches.

Thus, we get idiotic shit like this where we are getting charged disproportionately because the local branch wants to make profits. Which is the whole point of having a company, but hey...

weemadando wrote:Gotta love that kind of bullshit. I would really like to see the Australian Steam vs Brick and Mortar sales data for PC games...

Internode actually constantly laughs at things like the steam sales figures, when the Steam prices are significantly higher than the price you'd get by going to EB but they still sell.

Nerds are lazy and stupid etc etc.

That anyone really thinks proximity to Asia is a factor in a cartel maintaining historically high prices is just stupid. It's significantly cheaper to buy a copy of a game that was made in Asia and shipped to the US and then pay to have it shipped back than it is to buy in the shops here. It's called 'price fixing'.

Internode actually constantly laughs at things like the steam sales figures, when the Steam prices are significantly higher than the price you'd get by going to EB but they still sell.

In my experience that has never happened, except possibly at certain sales when EB is selling very old stock.

Nah, things (particularly shooters) that drop really fast in stores don't on steam, so it'll be like #2 seller on steam for $20 more than in a store. Obviously it only happens on the stuff that price-matches, thus making steam totally useless. In particular, things like Bad Company etc can be had from JB etc on launch for $80, and steam's 'retail pricing' is the rrp.

Stark wrote: That anyone really thinks proximity to Asia is a factor in a cartel maintaining historically high prices is just stupid. It's significantly cheaper to buy a copy of a game that was made in Asia and shipped to the US and then pay to have it shipped back than it is to buy in the shops here. It's called 'price fixing'.

I didn't actually believe that, I just thought it was a mildly amusing observation.

Stark wrote:Nah, things (particularly shooters) that drop really fast in stores don't on steam, so it'll be like #2 seller on steam for $20 more than in a store. Obviously it only happens on the stuff that price-matches, thus making steam totally useless. In particular, things like Bad Company etc can be had from JB etc on launch for $80, and steam's 'retail pricing' is the rrp.

I really like it when they were doing the ridiculous stuff so it wasn't even price matching. Like with Modern Warfare 2 where they went:

"Hey kids, how would you like to pay 100 AMERICAN DOLLARS for this game? And by the way, that'll be about 140 AUD once all is said and done. Why the fuck would you even bother? Now go and buy it from EB on console like we want you to."

JB and Target are so predictable that when I go to EB I just say 'JB has this for $89' and they don't bother checking anymore. For a while EB was doing new releases at $79 too, so...

It's worth noting that on Steam, every game they sell is giftable. If any of you have American friends, they are quite capable of buying the game at the US price and sending it to you as a gift. Neat little way of getting around the bullshit pricing.

Molyneux wrote:It's worth noting that on Steam, every game they sell is giftable. If any of you have American friends, they are quite capable of buying the game at the US price and sending it to you as a gift. Neat little way of getting around the bullshit pricing.

And, IIRC, a nice way to get around ridiculous censored versions of some games.